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“That’s what I’m afraid of. It does sound as though Dr. Lowe has a very powerful influence upon her. She’s a very wealthy woman, and I only hope he’s an honorable man.”
They reached her town house and Indy opened the door with her key. A piano concerto whirled into the air with a crashing of ominous bass notes.
“Who’s playing?” asked Ravenwood. “It sounds like a man. Why is a man playing the piano in your house?”
“Don’t be jealous. It’s not a man, it’s my friend Miss Beaton. She practices here as my piano is superior to hers.”
“I wasn’t jealous.”
Odd that he would deny it in such a guilty tone. Had he actually been jealous at the thought of a man in her town house?
“We depart for Paris tonight at five o’clock. Meet me at The White Bear, Piccadilly,” he said tersely.
She watched him walk away. Men and women alike turned their heads and stared as he passed. He was larger than life. Taller, more confident, more charismatic... with enough charm to woo the world.
She tore her gaze away. She must hide her desires more carefully.
Build her walls higher.
She could never let him see how he disarmed her.
Chapter 7
Safely inside her house, Indy collapsed against the solid wood door, her breath coming in short pants.
Holy mother of... what in the nine concentric circles of tormented Hell had just happened?
She felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest yet again and pinned to her lapel, beating and bleeding for the whole world to examine.
This wasn’t just an unexpected twist, or a plummet from a cliff. She had no idea what this was. She had no precedent in her experience for quantifying its meaning.
This morning she’d been on solid footing, and now...
Now she knew that Ravenwood kissed with his eyes open, as if he didn’t want to miss a millisecond of her response.
She knew the muscular scaffolding of his torso, the lean lines of his abdomen, the marble-sculpted roundness of his buttocks beneath her questing hands.
The gruff, encouraging noises he made when he was pleased by the progress of said questing hands.
The sensation of being both supported and overwhelmed by the sheer strength of his body, the force of his kisses. He’d always been larger than life in her mind, a sort of colossal statue of a man, like a monolith carved into bedrock.
But beneath that arrogant, mocking exterior she knew now that he had a heart that thumped against her breast, eyes that heated with desire... lips that played over hers with such teasing gentleness that it drove her to the brink of madness.
She unbuttoned her pelisse and removed her hat, setting them on the hallway table, moving heedlessly while her mind and heart still raced.
You’re in trouble, Indy. So much trouble.
She couldn’t simply unlearn all of this newly acquired knowledge. She was both an archaeologist and an archivist by nature. She not only wanted to make incredible discoveries, she wanted to pore over them until she’d classified them, until she understood their deeper significance.
The passions, fears, and forces that had driven the lives of ancient peoples. The mistakes that had destroyed them, the passions that had overruled their good sense, or the hope that had sustained them.
The kiss with Ravenwood had given her the exact same thrilling sense of discovery as uncovering an archaeological site. She wanted to know what it meant.
She wanted to know why he’d kissed her, why he’d lost control this time, when all the other times they’d clashed he’d remained mocking and emotionally removed. Yes, he’d wanted to frighten her, but she sensed it had been more than that.
For that matter, why had she kissed him? She couldn’t help the detailed, wanton dreams she had about him, but she could have pulled away from his kiss.
Because you wanted him to kiss you.
